girls.

These people are exceedingly polite in their manner towards each other,
each new arrival bowing, scraping his feet, and shaking hands with the
others, while there are constant greetings, such as, "Huddy? How's yer
lady?" ("How d' ye do? How's your wife?") The hand-shaking is performed
with the greatest possible solemnity. There is never the faintest shadow
of a smile on anybody's face during this performance. The children, too,
are taught to be very polite to their elders, and it is the rarest thing
to hear a disrespectful word from a child to his parent, or to any grown
person. They have really what the New-Englanders call "beautiful
manners."

We made daily visits to the "quarters," which were a few rods from the
house. The negro-houses, on this as on most of the other plantations,
were miserable little huts, with nothing comfortable or home-like about
them, consisting generally of but two very small rooms,--the only way of
lighting them, no matter what the state of the weather, being to leave
the doors and windows open. The windows, of course, have no glass in
them. In such a place, a father and mother with a large family of
children are often obliged to live. It is almost impossible to teach
them habits of neatness and order, when they are so crowded. We look
forward anxiously to the day when better houses shall increase their
comfort and pride of appearance.

Oaklands is a very small plantation. There were not more than eight or
nine families living on it. Some of the people interested us much.
Celia, one of the best, is a cripple. Her master, she told us, was too
mean to give his slaves clothes enough to protect them, and her feet and
legs were so badly frozen that they required amputation. She has a